Article and photos by Dylan Clements

‍Last updated: August 2026

I was putting together a Japan quote for a client last night and noticed something that has become increasingly difficult to ignore: luxury hotel prices in Kyoto have gone through the roof.

And I can tell you from booking Kyoto all the time, this isn't just about one set of dates. Five-star hotels there are consistently over $1,000 per night, and often considerably more.

What makes that interesting is that Osaka is only about 40 minutes down the road by Uber, and the ride can be around $30, yet hotel pricing can be dramatically lower.

Last night, for example, I found rooms at The Ritz-Carlton Osaka for less than $500 per night including tax.

That is a pretty significant difference when the two cities are so close, and it got me thinking that for some trips we should probably stop automatically treating Kyoto as the place you have to stay and instead treat Osaka as your base and do day trips from there.

Quiet Ninenzaka street in Kyoto early in the morning before the crowds, steps from Park Hyatt Kyoto

We love Kyoto, so I'm definitely not suggesting you skip it. Park Hyatt Kyoto was one of the highlights of our trip. The hotel is right on Ninenzaka, one of Kyoto's famous preserved historic streets lined with traditional wooden buildings, shops and restaurants. Because we were staying right there, we could get up in the morning, walk straight outside and have those normally packed streets almost to ourselves before the crowds arrived.

We also loved Four Seasons Kyoto. The team took exceptionally good care of us and arranged a private temple tour that ended up being one of the highlights of the trip.

But I do think people can overdo Kyoto.

Unless you have a genuine love of temples, I think three or four is probably enough. After that, there is a risk that they all start to blur together.

And I would happily skip the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. For me, it is one of those places that looks far better in photographs than it feels in person. It gets absolutely packed and has become a bit of a tourist trap.

There is still a very good reason to stay in Kyoto. Being there early in the morning and later in the evening, when a lot of the day visitors have disappeared, changes the experience.

But do you need to spend four or five nights there at more than $1,000 a night? I'm increasingly not convinced that you do.

In fairness to Kyoto, its food and beverage scene is getting better. There are some excellent restaurants and bars, and the luxury hotels themselves have added some very good options.

But Osaka has food in its DNA. It is known as "Japan's Kitchen," and eating is one of the best reasons to spend time there. You have everything from tiny counters, izakayas and street food to excellent sushi, yakitori, teppanyaki and some very serious fine dining.

Interestingly, we didn't love Osaka when we first visited in 2017.

When we went back in December, we had a completely different reaction. We loved it.

The city felt like it had changed enormously. Around Osaka Station there is now a huge new green space, and the whole area feels much more appealing than I remembered it. It was one of those trips where I came away wondering why I hadn't given Osaka more credit before.

The luxury hotel scene has changed enormously too. Four Seasons Osaka opened in 2024, Waldorf Astoria Osaka opened in 2025, and The Ritz-Carlton Osaka can be surprisingly good value.

Four Seasons Osaka is also quite often available with a fourth-night-free offer, which can make the difference between Osaka and Kyoto even greater when you look at the total cost of a stay.

The Waldorf Astoria is particularly interesting if you want to treat Osaka as your base because it's right by Osaka Station. You can stay in a new luxury hotel, walk over to the station and have extremely easy train access to Kyoto and the rest of the region.

And Osaka isn't somewhere I'd suggest using purely as a cheaper place to sleep.

There is plenty to do in the city itself. You can visit Osaka Castle, explore the markets, wander around Dotonbori, spend time in the huge department stores and shopping areas around Umeda, or head out at night and work your way through Osaka's bars and restaurants.

Dotonbori is loud, crowded and completely different from Kyoto. Osaka has much more energy at night, and after spending the day visiting temples and historic neighborhoods in Kyoto, coming back to Osaka for dinner and drinks isn't exactly a hardship.

The shopping is excellent too.

We ended up needing another suitcase because we had bought too much stuff. I asked the concierge where we should go to buy one and was told that suitcases were one of the most requested items they get from guests.

That probably tells you something about the shopping in Osaka.

Then there are the day trips.

We popped down to Kobe for a Kobe beef lunch. It's incredibly easy from Osaka and exactly the kind of thing you can do without packing everything up and changing hotels again.

Hiroshima is another option. The Shinkansen makes it very doable as a day trip from Osaka.

And of course there is Kyoto itself.

That is really the point I'm getting at. Treat Osaka as your base and do day trips from there. You can visit Kyoto, Kobe and Hiroshima while returning to the same hotel each night, and you also get Osaka's restaurants, bars and shopping when you come back.

I think the sweet spot for a lot of luxury trips could be two nights in Kyoto followed by three or four nights in Osaka.

You get to stay somewhere like Park Hyatt Kyoto or Four Seasons Kyoto and experience Kyoto early in the morning and at night. You can walk Ninenzaka before the crowds arrive, visit three or four temples and enjoy some of Kyoto's increasingly good restaurants.

Then move down the road to Osaka.

You could potentially cut your hotel bill considerably, have one of Japan's best food and beverage scenes on your doorstep and use Osaka as your base for day trips around the region.

I'm not suggesting Osaka replaces Kyoto. I think they work very well together.

What has changed for me is Osaka itself. I wasn't particularly taken with it in 2017. When we returned in December, I came away with a completely different opinion of the city.

And when I'm regularly seeing Kyoto's five-star hotels at more than $1,000 per night and then finding The Ritz-Carlton Osaka for less than $500 including tax just 40 minutes away, I think it's worth questioning whether spending the entire trip in Kyoto still makes sense.

If you're planning a trip to Japan and trying to work out how to split your time between Kyoto and Osaka, this is exactly the kind of itinerary we can help with. We can recommend the right hotels, build in the best day trips and book through our preferred partner programs where available, often with benefits such as breakfast, hotel credit, upgrades and flexible check-in and check-out.

Plan your Japan trip with Clements Travel and we’ll help you work out whether Kyoto, Osaka, or a combination of both makes the most sense for your trip.